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Safe From Harm

The first house I lived in was small and pretty. There was a park nearby and one of my first memories is watching black and white cartoons on a ugly tv set in my parents bedroom. There was my little sister and my parents. That was my first home.

There was another house with the number 25 in front of it. Another sister came along, making 5 the number of us at home. Our home. Mom would go to the hospital in her white uniform. Dad would work with math. My sisters and I would just be kids.

Tall and spacious, there was a third home. Still we were 5. My mom dressed up in white, working at a different hospital or clinic. Dad still doing very complicated math but also playing tennis every freaking day. My sisters taking the shape of beautiful little women. I was there with all of them.

Then I left. And once in a while I visited them but I would leave again. Home was no longer all of us together in the same place. Then my dad left. Then my sisters left. Mom stayed alone for a while until she left that home….. and now all of us are in different places, no longer the 5 of us together.

So where is home now? Home was not really the places where I lived, but the people who I lived with. They were home to me. I was safe with them. And when I left them and found myself alone, I questioned things intensively.

I do not miss the places. I miss the people that were part of it. But we can’t go back in time. We all have changed. We only have the future. And our new homes.